This historic island prison holds one of the dungeons from the Count of Monte Cristo even though it is a work of fiction.

This surreal statue brings a famous French novel about a supernatural cad to arresting life.

Stroll through retro Paris while shopping for old postcards and discarded doll heads.

Noirish green neon marks the location of one of the oldest private detective agencies in France.

This off-limits room in the National Library of France is home to a system of pneumatic tubes, once used to bring books to readers.

Two awe-inspiring globes from the reign of the Sun King hang from the ceiling of France's national library.

An iconic and eccentric bar for "Manouche" Jazz music keeps expanding its space—and its influence.

This banal Parisian entranceway is not what it seems.

A Parisian exterminator's shop whose storefront displays stuffed rats hanging from traps.

This life-size replica of the Statue of Liberty's flame is also a tribute to Princess Diana by default.

The tradition of open-air secondhand and antiquarian bookselling in Paris dates back to the Renaissance.

The curious underground history of keeping Paris clean.

Walk through spectacular aisles of hanging meat and wagon wheel–sized cheese at the world's largest wholesale food market.

Original cabaret handbills, posters, and feline artwork are a purrfect highlight of the Museum of Montmartre.

An off-the-beaten-path boutique stuffed with an eclectic collection of upcycled goods.

In the best of all possible worlds, everyone will get a chance to see this statue in which Voltaire's heart is interred.

An overlooked marble is the only surviving in-place 18th century example of the measurement that changed how we define distance.

A majestic lion statue guards this Parisian botanical garden, and feeds on an unsettling item.

Paris' fabled purveyor of exotic taxidermy and natural history curios.

The first green space constructed on an elevated viaduct.

This Parisian fountain is a little bit fantasy and a little bit nightclub.

The water-powered carriages are long gone, but for over a century this funicular railway has been the fastest route to the highest point in Paris.

Known as the "Dodo Manège," this carousel features a herd of animals that have disappeared—or may be gone soon.

A Parisian cemetery where the elite and artistic are interred beneath an eccentric collection of tombs.